The Doomsday Clock is an internationally recognized design that conveys how close we are to destroying our civilization with dangerous technologies of our own making. First and foremost among these are nuclear weapons, but the dangers include climate-changing technologies, emerging... Read More

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Edwin S. Lyman

A physicist, Lyman is a senior staff scientist in the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington. His expertise is in nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism prevention. Previously, he served as president of the Nuclear Control Institute. In 2004, he authored Chernobyl-on-the-Hudson? an analysis of the consequences of a terrorist attack on the Indian Point nuclear power plant located near New York City.

How vulnerable are US nuclear reactors to the kind of disaster that is occurring at Fukushima Daiichi? Considering that one in three Americans lives within 50 miles of a nuclear plant, the public deserves access to all information that can shed light on this question. Yet a straight answer has been difficult to obtain from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the nuclear industry.

To its credit, in the 30 years since the accident at Three Mile Island, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has taken many steps to improve the safety and security of U.S. nuclear reactors. But despite these efforts and the fact that a Three Mile Island-scale accident hasn't occurred in the United States since 1979, safety and security vulnerabilities remain at the country's nuclear plants. And what is more relevant than the absence of large-scale accidents is the alarming frequency of serious near misses.

Despite the clinical importance of medical isotopes, used in an estimated 18 million procedures per year in the United States alone, the world's supply is increasingly unreliable due to antiquated reactors. At one point in August, all five of the most important medical isotope-producing reactors, all located outside of the United States, were inoperable. The simultaneous shutdowns resulted in supply interruptions, causing a rationing of medical procedures in some areas. Problems are likely to persist for months because one of the largest reactors requires significant repairs.